Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to make a contribution on behalf of the opposition on the second reading debate on the Water Legislation Amendment (Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2016, to put forward our views. As we know, the bill seeks to amend the 2012 Murray-Darling Basin Plan, allowing for the second notification of supply and efficiency measures, and further adds a deadline for sustainable diversion limit, SDL, adjustment. The amendment bill also puts a deadline on determination of the adjustment of the sustainable diversion limit until 15 December 2017. This deadline is here to add more certainty to the plan.

The bill is integral, as it allows for the development of supply and efficiency measures for basin states—New South Wales, Victoria, the ACT, Queensland and South Australia—as requested by the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council. We have in this bill before us an additional year to help develop and refine projects that will deliver for the environment and for farmers.

As those across the chamber would be aware, Labor overcame more than 100 years of conflict and partisan politics to put the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in place. The significance of this achievement should not be underestimated. The basin covers approximately one-seventh of the coastal area of mainland Australia, with over two million people living there, including Canberra and many of our other regional centres: Toowoomba, Bendigo, Albury-Wodonga, Tamworth, Dubbo, Orange, Wagga Wagga, Queanbeyan and Shepparton. It is also home to many bioregions and includes landscapes as diverse as subtropical rainforests in the north, our semi-arid desert in the west, and alpine areas and snowfields in the south. It has an incredible array of animals, including endangered birds, mammals and snakes.

In addition to its environmental assets, the basin contains some of the oldest remains of modern humans. It is worth noting that ritual burial sites at Lake Mungo in New South Wales highlight that humans have been in this region for more than 40,000 years, and the region is home to around 50 Aboriginal nations. They have long and strong connections with the rivers and land in this region. It houses a vast ecosystem, but, as many know, agriculture is the most significant user of the basin's land and water resources. It provides employment for basin residents and contributes significantly to our regional economies. Here in the Murray-Darling Basin region, we have approximately 20 per cent of Australia's total agricultural land area and also one-third of the nation's food supply and exports, which go to many countries overseas, 40 per cent of Australia's farms and 65 per cent of all irrigation farms. The scale of irrigated cropping production in the basin is not matched by any other region in Australia. It was worth approximately $6.7 billion when the Basin Plan was put in place.

While the scale of production is not matched by any other region, the volume of water that flows into the Murray from its tributaries and out to the Southern Ocean can, as we know, be extremely variable. This means the water for farmers and water for the environment, including the precious wetlands, is not always there. Variation also means that, when there is a flood, there can be too much water. These pressures and variability in water availability are expected to increase with climate change. So, to manage the extreme dry times, a plan to buy back water licences from irrigators and improve farm efficiency has been developed. Examples like this highlight how vulnerable the basin is and how we need to ensure its management through supply and efficiency measures for years to come.

So Labor is committed to returning the Murray-Darling system to health through the implementation of this plan. As I previously stated, in 2012 the Labor government introduced the plan, which sought to secure the long-term health of the basin. It set limits for irrigators and other water users and established where more water was needed for the system to survive. The plan aimed to return to the basin 2,750 billion litres of water which was being used mainly for irrigation and allows for up to 3,200 billion litres to be recovered. Stakeholder input was key to developing the plan and to a number of consultation activities taking place, including formal consultation periods, community meetings, round tables, visits to Aboriginal communities, briefings with businesses and almost 12,000 submissions during the consultation period. We know from this that discussions and differences continue to some degree about the plan and its impact. The plan, however, continues to provide a clear framework and certainty that was long overdue. This certainty is critical to rural communities and to the precious environment that exists in our Murray-Darling Basin. The 641-page final plan delivered on the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's draft recommendations, which the water minister at the time, Tony Burke, said would mean an extra focus on infrastructure investments to improve water use efficiency. However, it would not forget water buybacks and water for our environment. Basin state governments along the river system were tasked with coming up with ideas to return 650 gigalitres to the environment, with the final 450 gigalitres to be found in removing capacity restrictions. The bill that we have before us today is another step in this process.

The bill will help people on the ground as well as the basin states. Achieving greater water offsets requires projects that can provide more environmental water and projects that address physical and operational constraints to free up the delivery of environmental water to where it is needed. While some have criticised the delay in implementation of these projects, there is, however, little point having these innovations without the funding and consideration they need; otherwise, they will be set up to fail.

Basin states have submitted a range of projects and have asked for time to further develop some of these. While we do not want to see delays to such an important plan, we want quality projects to receive the attention they deserve and the funding they need, so it is only natural that we would like to support good environmental policy. Labor wants the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to work and we are committed to returning the Murray-Darling system to health through the implementation of the plan. The coalition's political moves to cap water buybacks in 2015 and to slash infrastructure funding in 2014 put pressure on every other component of the Basin Plan, making it more fragile than it needs to be.

We on this side will always carefully monitor the implementation of the plan, because we have always done so. We support this bill so Labor's Murray-Darling Basin Plan can continue to be effectively implemented.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support the Water Legislation Amendment (Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2016 before the Senate today. It concerns a sustainable diversion limit applicable in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and it extends the deadline for any decision to adjust this limit. The SDL, sustainable diversion limit, is the maximum amount of water that can be taken for consumptive use. The extension will allow further time to gather information that should lead to a greater upward adjustment in the limit—in other words, more water for consumptive use. This would mean: more for farmers to grow food and to support productivity throughout the basin; more time for the current floods to recede so that we can appreciate the natural restorative effects of flooding rains that we were told were never likely to return; and more time to see if we can get the implementation of the Basin Plan right.

We do not have any more time to wait for the government's response to the Senate Select Committee on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, which I chaired, and from which the committee's report was tabled on 17 March 2016. That report made 31 recommendations, which, if implemented, would significantly reduce the negative impact the plan is having on communities in the basin, from Queensland to the mouth of the Murray in South Australia.

It was reported last month that a Murray-Darling Basin Authority report on the northern basin showed employment in northern irrigation communities has been smashed by the removal of water from farming. The report also found that the targets legislated under the Basin Plan would have quite large socio-economic impacts in the Condamine and Balonne valleys if they were pursued. This is what the local communities have been saying for years, but they have not been listened to. Communities in the southern basin wonder why there was no study of the socioeconomic impacts in their area, particularly given they have borne the brunt of water recovery. Their expectation is that the economic impact will be even more severe than in northern communities.

Last week, the media reported on the frustration of the chairman of the Southern Riverina Irrigators, Graeme Pyle, who called on the government to take the blinkers off and act on the select committee inquiry's recommendations. Mr Pyle said:

Under the Basin Plan, there have been ongoing reductions in availability and affordability of productive water, so it is reasonable to assume the results of any social and economic study will not be pretty. They will show the plan for what it is … an economic disaster without evidence of environmental gains.

This goes to the crux of some of the key recommendations in the inquiry report: no more water buybacks; a full assessment of the social and economic impacts of the plan; and a cost-benefit analysis of the various options to adapt the management of the Lower Lakes and the Coorong. Hundreds of farming communities across four states are feeling the pain of the Basin Plan implementation. We are now seeing analysis confirming what those communities have been saying. It is time for the government to accept the recommendations of the select committee, which have been endorsed by many basin communities, so that further implementation of the plan has the support of the communities most affected.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support the Water Legislation Amendment (Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2016, and I will outline the reasons why. Before I do so, I will give some background. Back in 2007, when I stood for election for the Senate and was elected, the southern states of Australia, in particular, were gripped by what was called the millennium drought, one of the most severe droughts we had seen for many generations. I spoke to so many farmers, so many environmentalists, who indicated just how awful it was in terms of rising salinity levels and a lack of ability to draw water out of the great Murray-Darling river system. Our farmers were in dire straits as a result of the deteriorating water levels and water quality levels. There was a need to manage the environmental flows better so that we could get a better outcome for agriculture as well.

Back then it was almost a case of musical chairs and pass the parcel, in that nobody wanted to take responsibility for the whole issue of water and maintaining the great Murray-Darling Basin from Queensland to New South Wales, ACT, Victoria and, of course, South Australia, where we are particularly vulnerable because we are at the end of the river system. The Lower Lakes are what many leading water economists and environmentalists, such as Professor Mike Young from the University of Adelaide, have described as the lungs of the river system. You need to ensure that the nutrients and salinity are flushed out through the Lower Lakes. That is critical for the health of the river system upstream as well.

I had an opportunity in early 2009 to negotiate with the then Rudd government to ensure that there was going to be an increase in water buybacks, to the tune of half a billion dollars, to improve environmental flows so our farmers would have a healthier river system. Unless we have a healthy river system, our farmers cannot rely on that river system. If you have rising salinity levels, if you do not do the right thing environmentally, you compromise the agricultural production of our great river system. I also managed to negotiate $200 million in stormwater harvesting, which was used in projects around the country because it is an efficient way of ensuring that you can access water. It is much cheaper than desalination plants and it makes a huge difference in terms of a good environmental outcome and saving water. I also negotiated a $200 million package for river communities that were at breaking point because of the drought. These were communities in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the ACT.

I think we did the right thing then. We should remember that the $10 billion package for water—that great program—was initiated by the Howard government because former Prime Minister Howard understood the importance of having a national plan instead of a state-by-state, piecemeal approach when it comes to the management of our great river system, the Murray-Darling, and the communities that rely on it in the Murray-Darling Basin.

So I support the Water Legislation Amendment (Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2016. This bill will help deliver on the 2012 decision by the basin ministers to enhance Basin Plan environmental and socio-economic outcomes through three key elements: firstly, adjusting sustainable diversion limits to offset the originally proposed water recovery target of 2,750 gigalitres by 2019; secondly, addressing physical and operational constraints on the use of environmental water; and, thirdly, recovering an additional 450 gigalitres of water for the environment by 2024 through so-called efficiency measures.

On the issue of efficiency measures: South Australia has had to, by virtue of drought since the 1960s, be more efficient and adopt water efficiency measures earlier than other states by virtue of the fact that we are vulnerable being at the tail end of this great river system. That is something I do not believe has ever been adequately taken into account in the formation of policy. This bill, agreed to by the Basin ministers in April this year, primarily addresses the first element—that is, to adjust sustainable diversion limits by giving states more time to develop projects to offset the need for water recovery. This is very important and could potentially allow diversion limits to be increased; notwithstanding that, you need to give them more time to transition. I see this as part of having a healthy river system so that our farmers can have a long-term, viable future in relation to their agricultural produce.

However, it is just as important that all jurisdictions maintain their efforts in the second and third elements of the Basin Plan implementation—that is, by addressing constraints and by recovering the extra 450 gigalitres by 2024. I support this bill with the expectation that New South Wales and Victoria, in particular, will honour their commitments around addressing constraints on the use of environmental water and the recovery of the extra 450 gigalitres. The constraints that Basin governments agreed would be addressed as part of the Basin Plan implementation are essentially a set of operating rules and structures that currently limit the delivery and timing of environmental flows. Addressing these constraints is vital for enabling additional areas of wetlands and flood plains to receive water when they really need it. Again, this is about getting the balance between the environment and agricultural production right because farmers cannot have a viable, agricultural production and economic model unless we have good quality water so that they can grow crops.

While addressing constraints, this will have significant environmental benefits. The potential constraint projects being considered by Basin governments also provide an opportunity to further offset the need for water recovery, which again would benefit irrigators, and that to me is very important. Those irrigators in the Riverland and in the lower part of the Murray lands in the Lower Lakes need our support. Just as importantly, constraints projects also have a potential to benefit regional communities and individual landholders by providing greater protection against both naturally occurring and managed higher flow events in key parts of the Murray-Darling Basin. So I urge the New South Wales and Victorian governments to continue working with their communities to realise the full potential of these constraints projects for the benefit of Basin irrigators, affected communities and the environment.

In supporting the passage of this bill, I also wish to highlight the need for states to put forward sound water recovery offset projects in a timely manner, and it must be done in a way that gives good value for taxpayer money, as well as a good environmental benefit and, through it, a good benefit for our farmers. Constraints are one set of projects that can offset water recovery as well as deliver broader community and environmental health benefits. Projects such as the Menindee Lakes water-saving project is another type of activity that can offset water recovery by delivering evaporative water savings.

In relation to Menindee Lakes, it supplies water to Broken Hill. It is on the same time zone as South Australia, so many people in Broken Hill are much closer to Adelaide than they are to Sydney and there is a close affinity and bond between the people of Broken Hill and South Australians by virtue of geography and history. I have been asking questions in Senate estimates, going back eight years now, about the reason why it has taken so long for the New South Wales government, or rather governments since that time, to implement some sensible measures to deal with the massive evaporation in the lakes and to secure a high-quality potable water supply for the people of Broken Hill. I hope we will get a breakthrough on that sooner rather than later because the people of Broken Hill deserve better.

The Menindee Lakes water-saving project will significantly change how the River Murray is operated. To ensure its success, New South Wales is to engage the Australian, Victorian and South Australian governments as early as possible to make sure the project takes into account all jurisdictions—I emphasise 'all jurisdictions'—and the River Murray water requirements.

I support this bill. I believe this is the best we can do. I also consider that not having a national plan, not going ahead with this, will ultimately harm our irrigators and harm our farmers in the Murray-Darling Basin and all of those great communities that are in that basin. But, of course, it is reasonable, as always, where communities' livelihoods are at stake, where taxpayers' moneys are being expended at a significant level, to ensure a constant scrutiny and questioning. That is why, whilst I may disagree with Senator Leyonhjelm's conclusions in relation to the Murray-Darling Basin, I welcome that level of robust debate because it is a healthy thing in our democracy with respect to getting the best outcome for the great Murray-Darling river system.

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Water Legislation Amendment (Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2016, which, in the words of the minister, amends the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to allow basin states to notify a second package of sustainable diversion limit adjustment measures.

Let me get straight to the point. If this means that our farmers get more water, One Nation unhesitatingly supports this bill. However, the fact that parliament needs to legislate to allow farmers to draw the water that they need to feed Australia out of the rivers raises the greater concern: just what has happened to water management in this country? The Labor-inspired Murray-Darling Plan is just the latest example of big government telling ordinary Australians what they can do on something as basic as water use. It is contrary to both the spirit and intent of our Australian Constitution and the Australian way of life. The relevant parts of the Constitution are section 99, titled 'Commonwealth not to give preference', and section 100, which states in no uncertain terms:

The Commonwealth shall not, by any law or regulation of trade or commerce, abridge the right of a State or of the residents therein to the reasonable use of the waters of rivers for conservation or irrigation.

What emerged in section 100 was in effect a bill of rights for our farmers and for the residents of the towns along the Murray-Darling. It was never intended under the Constitution that the Commonwealth receive, and the Commonwealth did not receive, any other power—in particular any power over conservation and irrigation. Basically, politicians, including the Nationals, have given away these rights, which should belong to the people.

This is Canberra acting as a puppet of the United Nations and its various instruments, including Agenda 21. Under Agenda 21, section 18 states what they want to do with the Earth Summit that was brought in in 1992, which we became a signatory to with 176 other countries around the world. It was put out to people around the world to look at the privatisation of water. Under chapter 18 of that, the document that I read years ago stated that if you put a dam on your property of a certain size you will only capture about 10 percent of the water into that dam, and for anything else you would actually have to let it flow to the rivers or creeks. If not, you would be taxed on it. It was put in there to actually make sure that water would be privatised around the world. It would become a commodity. Therefore, our right to water would be taken away from us and put into the hands of international interests—those who were to make a lot of money out of it.

Then, I have to say, Agenda 21 has not been in our best interest. If you do not believe me, then go out onto the farms and into the rural areas of the nation, talk to the locals in the pubs and the townships of our country and realise that what I am saying touches the heartstrings across Australia.

Once again, big government is using a big stick to favour extreme environmental claims over the needs of working farms. The left-wing obsession with so-called sustainable development finds expression in Agenda 21's prosperity-denying principles. These, among other things, seek to deny the right of democratic nations to control and regulate their own water to maximise their food production and growth. What we are seeing happening in one state, in South Australia—Senator Xenophon was just here—is that now the state government wants to impose low-flow bypasses on farms and properties there, which is going to deny them the right to use water on their farms and properties—the right to have that water so they can grow their crops. Dams are being stopped from being put in. All I can see across Australia is the controlling of our water.

I also have a grave concern: why did the Howard government, in 2004, separate water from land, allowing people to come in here, buy up the water rights and deny the farming sector the right to that water? It is our right to that water. No government owns it. No-one owns it. Foreign interests should not own this. This is water for the people.

At times I have said that, if we are going to charge the man on the land for the water that is in his dams or deny him the right to expand his farms and to carry the water that will see him through in times of drought, the next thing that will be imposed on the people of Australia is that we will be taxed on the water that we catch in our water tanks. This may start in the farming sector around our country, but eventually every Australian will feel the effects of this if they have a water tank. Over the years, since the time I was a young child, I have seen the rising costs of water in this country. That should never be happening.

What I am proposing is that governments have not looked after the water issues in this country. We have failed to put in enough dams to service the needs of the people. We have not provided that. We are actually shutting it down. We have to be smart. We keep increasing the population in this country, and we are not putting in the infrastructure to cater for this. That is why we must look after putting in more dams and allowing the farmers to have the water they need. We would not need this legislation so the farmers could come cap in hand saying, 'We can have a few more beggarly litres of water.' It should not be happening that way.

The farmers are the people of this land. They are the environmentalists. They are not going to destroy their livelihoods. They have come through generations of looking after the environment, and they are not going to destroy something. Unless we stand by them and protect them with water and with land, we are not going to have the farming sector in this country anymore. I see it constantly shut down. We are now bringing in imports of food, but what I can say is that I hear too often that the food imports are not up to the standard that we impose on our own farmers here. They have to come up to standards that we do not even put on the imports that come into Australia.

I will go back to the whole thing. In conclusion, Australia's national sovereignty is being undermined by the thousands of excessive UN treaties which promote green tape and are death to the best interests of Australia. If all the rivers and creeks that run across this land become subject to the laws of the UN, how long will it be before the rain collected in the tanks on the properties of our farmers will also become subject to Agenda 21 regulation and tax? How long before the UN dictates that we must pay a tax for the privilege of sunlight? Australia is its own country with its own Constitution and should not be dictated to by unrepresentative foreign organisations with agendas that are opposed to our best interests.

I support this bill because I think it is a start, but we have a long way to go. I will call on this parliament and our governments: please support the farming sector. They are struggling. I have just been out there. I have been through on two hay runs to take much-needed hay to farmers. We are not doing enough to support them. If we encourage them to put dams on their properties, they can drought-proof themselves to feed their stock and irrigate through times of drought. I thank you for your time.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In speaking to the Water Legislation Amendment (Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2016, can I say that the government is absolutely committed to the delivery of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Can I also acknowledge the bipartisan approach that was undertaken in establishing this plan in the first place. The 'one basin, one plan' mantra that followed the establishment of the negotiations when this plan was first put in place is a testament, I think, to how governments and oppositions in parliaments can work together to deliver the best possible outcome on something as critical as our water security.

Key to our ability to deliver this plan is recognising that it is not just environmental concerns and outcomes that need to be delivered; we also need to take into account the social and economic impacts of any changes through legislation or regulation. As you would be aware, Mr Acting Deputy President, I am an irrigator, and I can assure you that there is nobody on the land in Australia that understands better the need for a healthy river environment than an irrigator. It is the basis of our sustainability. Without a healthy river system, we do not have an economy, and without an economy we do not have our river communities.

The SDL adjustment mechanism process is a fundamental part in our ability to deliver this triple-bottom-line outcome. It provides a mechanism by which environmental outcomes can also be tested for their efficiency. We focused on irrigation efficiencies in the initial commencement of the rollout of the plan, whether they be on-farm or off-farm efficiencies for the delivery of water for irrigation, stock and domestic, and other consumptive use purposes. But it is equally important that we use water for environmental purposes equally efficiently.

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan in 2012 set out the process for coordinated and sustainable management of this very important river system. It also set out the long-term-average sustainable diversion limits, and it included an adjustment mechanism to adjust those limits by up to five per cent. The adjustment mechanism provides for the amendment of the SDLs based on either supply measure projects that deliver the Basin Plan environmental outcomes with less environmental water or efficiency measure projects that recover more environmental water in ways that deliver neutral or beneficial social and economic outcomes.

This bill amends the Basin Plan to provide for a second opportunity to notify adjustment measures by 30 June 2017. It provides another opportunity for the basin states to develop new projects to allow the SDL to be adjusted—and beyond those that have already been notified as of June 2016. It provides opportunities to maximise social, economic and environmental outcomes of the Basin Plan by augmenting the potential SDL adjustment.

It also builds on the Australian government's commitment to sustainable agricultural production. As you would well know, Mr Acting Deputy President, water is an absolutely critical input to agriculture, and it is one of the key pillars of this government's platform that agriculture is a very important part of our economy. We have done other things through the implementation of the plan. We have applied a sense of adaptive management to the implementation of this plan, an example of which was the capping of water purchases as part of the return of water for this purpose to 1,500 gigalitres last year.

We have also looked at some other really exciting measures for our ability to deliver efficient environmental water. There are such initiatives as the other no-flow measures that are being currently considered, the most famous of which is the carp control measure, which we are hoping will clear the river of the toxic carp that have been introduced and, in the process of doing so, increase our native fish populations. Up until now, this has not been able to be considered as an adjustment mechanism. However, we have given the states the opportunity to consider this and other types of no-flow measures, which could add to the environmental outcomes with either no damage at all to the social and economic communities that rely on the river or possibly even providing additional benefits.

We intend to continue to work in partnership with the basin states. As you would be aware, Mr Acting Deputy President Back, the Basin Plan requires the support of all of the basin states for us to be able to make any changes in the delivery of the legislation and the regulations that sit with it. I also assure Senator Hanson that we are very well aware of the rights of irrigators and of people and the communities who live on the river. One of the fundamental rights that we absolutely understand are riparian rights—that is, the rights of those people who live down river are equally entitled to expect that water will also flow past their properties and they will have access to it. This is not a case of those highest up the river get the best deal.

In concluding, I thank everybody—the opposition, the Nick Xenophon Team, the One Nation team, Senator Leyonhjelm and the other crossbenchers, and of course the Greens, who I am hoping will also be supporting this because of the importance of this delivering for the whole river community—for the support of this bill and I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.